Fianna Fail Continue Online Outreach
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Returning to yesterday’s post on Fianna Fail’s technical innovations (at least the search for an online an editor). It was a day that I certainly didn’t think I would see any time soon but someone must have hammered at them pretty hard because today they reveal they are looking to reach out to bloggers in Ireland.
Learning the lessons of the Greens in asking bloggers to go on their contact list, the new page asks bloggers to join the mailing list and offers party members the chance to start blogging.
The latter is a call-back function promisning instruction on blogging. Intersting to see the largest party turn toward the model so quickly and certainly with Labour and the Greens doing their own thing in this regard also it makes the next election potentially very interesting.
I think online engagement is positive in principle and Fianna Fail as a government party has suffered for that fact. They have not seen the need to get engaged online and their representation among political bloggers and forums (apart from politics.ie) appears to be quite out of proportion to the general electorate. What lessons have been learned from Lisbon – where three men and a website managed to outdo them – and from Barack Obama will be interesting.
Fianna Fail has always had the physical manifestation of my.barackobama.com in its cumann structure, raising the question of overlap if they go into online organisation. If they are looking to keep it to publicity, debate and argument at present that is no bad thing – bearing in mind it is done with a voice and tone that marks it apart from press releases and the controlled language of party politics.
What makes the best politicians’ blogs is their authenticity. The use of video by Labour in recent months has set them apart at engaging the net on their terms and getting their message out there. What Fianna Fail come up with is of
It is, of course, green shoots but the prospect of competitive web efforts over the coming months and during the next election is very good news, no doubt others will have something to say on this.
FF have dipped their toe into this water before. I seem to recall Shane Cassell’s, for the Meath by-election had a campaign blog on his site shanecassells.com (odd that though he is still a cllr that the site is gone), which turned out to be not his own work and was really just a diary of his day and the usual, voters are lovely, a nice woman in Moate said to me kind of thing.
Personally, I would have though podcasting for rural candidates would be great draw, so long as they were short and to the point. “En dis aray, we will bring jobs to every house and milk to every calf” kind of thing. Imagine a weekly Jackie-Healy Rae fireside chat, it could be huge!
It’s not so long ago that Brian Lenihan stood up in the Dáíl to urge us all not to spend money in Newry doing our daily shopping as it was ‘unpatriotic’. Yet today, his own party, Fianna Fáil, has hired a leading US firm to build the party’s new website . This is the firm that President Barack Obama hired to manage his web campaign on his way to the White House and, perhaps, Fianna Fáil, having more money than sense, feel that this is the way to get some of the Obama magic working on their flagging poll fortunes.
The reality is that the FF website, though slick, is a bog standard website. There’s nothing exceptional about it. It could have been designed far more cost effectively at home in Ireland, with all due respect to Blue State Digital. I have no doubt there are numerous web design companies in Ireland who would have designed a web site at least as good without expending all those airmiles. As for the Obama magic, it can’t be bought. And if Fianna Fáíl think it can, we’re in more trouble than we know.
It Seems now days if Fianna Fail wanted their offices painted people will say leonardo de vincies relation is coming over to do it. Myself being non Party is seriously thinking of voting FF in the next election from where i used to vote independents and workers party. Sitting back and studing the form of other political parties some of them should join the monster raving looney party in the uk they listing to a deputy leader Quoting a poem about cromwell on national tv because she couldnt think of some thing to say herself ( Oliver Cromwell) what part of the island are we on. I also think some of the opposition Parties Would seriously want to seek some professinol help.
The above question the online outreach i think its a great idea we can blog them i like it its uneducated crittisisers with the isims eg (SOCIALISIMS COMMUNISIM) is what i be worried about when i looked up the word isims in the dictionary i started to wonder and study the form people should try it we all have to live on this island together next door down the road where ever and not endure it. Any idea that means reaching out to people is a good idea no matter where it comes from who did it dont mean nothing maybe if the independents and opposition parties and the people with the isims took a leaf out of obama like FF did then they might being down the right road as the person above said it cant be bought and thats cheaper than any website.
Mairtín’s right to say that the huge swing against Fianna Fáil is out of proportion. In a way, however, it’s disproportionality is to be expected as, during the good years, FF claimed all the credit for the Tiger economy. That too was disproportionate because those good days came as a result of the global situation being so good. Fianna Fáíl are reaping what they sowed.